


a confluence of dreams and nightmare

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom Armitage Hux, Canon Rewrite, Feral Behavior, Getting Back Together, Jealous Armitage Hux, M/M, Pining, Possessive Behavior, Rough Sex, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, The emergence of a deadly power couple, Top Kylo Ren, Wall Sex, inspired by the TRoS novelization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:01:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22881436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: An off-handed comment made by Allegiant General Pryde spurs Hux to try again when it comes to his fractured relationship with the Supreme Leader.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 14
Kudos: 421





	a confluence of dreams and nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> A quick little fic inspired by the TRoS novelization tidbit we were gifted the other day. 
> 
> Canon order of events is kind of played around with and not totally accurate—then again, so much information was cut out of the movie or jumbled in its presentation, I guess it's not too big of a deal.

“He’s almost beautiful to watch.”

In the moment, Hux hadn’t thought to dignify such an observation with a response. With Ren embroiled in the thick of combat, cutting a swath through hordes of hapless, haggard cultists, he’d thought little of the nature or origin of Pryde’s spontaneous comment. Hux didn’t want to admit he had been entranced by the maelstrom of Ren’s bloodlust, but he couldn’t think of anything else to call it. Even after all these years, Ren still held some strange, hypnotic power over him that Hux couldn’t shake no matter how advisable and _sane_ doing so probably was. 

But the words came rushing back on the shuttle trip back from Mustafar. With the _Finalizer_ still heavily damaged, the role of the Order’s flagship had transferred over to Pryde’s vessel, the unfamiliar _Steadfast_. Hux tried to let it roll off his back—after the disaster on Batuu, they needed a functional ship to command from, and Pryde’s destroyer fit the bill nicely. Hux didn’t want to be distracted by unnecessarily taking offense to changes that were merely born from the necessity of war. 

Of course. It was all nothing personal. 

But the way Pryde looked at Ren, as the three of them rode back to the _Steadfast_? Hux was taking that very, very personally. 

_He’s almost beautiful to watch._ Pryde’s thin, smug voice echoed around in Hux’s head as he watched the other general and the Supreme Leader convene aboard the shuttle regarding the events on Mustafar, biting his tongue though he felt desperate to interject. To wedge himself between Ren and this—this _interloper_. A tenuous connection to a relic of the past, in Hux’s opinion, was no replacement for years of proper service to the Order. To Kylo Ren. Things hadn’t always been smooth between them—but it was more than what Pryde could lay claim to. Hux knew this. 

He could only hope that Ren did, too. 

Hux waited to speak up until they disembarked the shuttle into the hangar of the _Steadfast_. “Supreme Leader, shall I prepare your fighter for departure? The technicians should have the new Whisper model fully operational.”

But Ren, still slathered with the grime of the battle, shook his head. “In due time. For now, I must retire to my quarters.” 

“But sir—”

“Do you question the Supreme Leader, Armitage?” Hux flinched at the sound of Pryde’s voice crawling over his given name. He shot the other general a tight look, lips flattening into a white, thin line. Ren, apparently disinterested in the tensions brewing between them, rolled his shoulders and swept away, taking the bulk of the stormtrooper guards with him and leaving the two generals in an icy standoff. 

“I would be careful if I were you,” Pryde said, amusement in his chilled voice, “you don’t want to be admonished, or worse, for speaking out of turn. The Supreme Leader can get quite physical, as we’ve born witness to already.”

“Perhaps you’re the one who should be careful, Enric. You’ve not seen the Supreme Leader the way I have,” Hux shot back boldly, just only biting his tongue on worse, more acerbic insults. He suppresses a flinch as Pryde’s hand tightens on the sleek black haft of his swagger stick, but thankfully, the other general doesn’t move to lash out from his stiff position. 

Instead, he simpered, smugness paving over the flicker of anger. “You seem irritated. Perhaps you should retire. We’ve had quite the eventful day—tempers have been aroused far more than usual. The Supreme Leader’s intensity affects us all.” Pryde turned on heel, showing Hux his back and sideways smirk. “Farewell for now, Armitage. Keep my words in mind, for your own sake.” 

Hux watched his go until he was out of sight. For a moment, he considered his next move, before taking off out of the hangar—in the direction of the Supreme Leader’s quarters. 

He would prove to himself _and_ Pryde the depth of his and Ren’s relationship, or die trying. 

* * *

Hux slunk through the hallways rather than adopting his usual stride, well-aware he was breaching the boundaries of protocol in following the Supreme Leader to his quarters. He expected to get lost—he was still getting used to the floorplan of the _Steadfast_ after years of the _Finalizer_ being his home—but oddly, he wove his way with relative ease, as if he were a rat being led through the maze by the luring scent of a treat. Before long, he found himself at the heart of the ship, standing outside of Ren’s door. 

Hux glanced about, taken aback by the unguarded entrance. A sign of Ren’s not necessarily misplaced confidence. Snoke, powerful as he was, maintained a well-trained guard around him. Ren, apparently, considered himself above such trivial protections. 

But that suited Hux just fine at the moment. He didn’t want to have to come up with a lie to explain himself to any trooper guards. It would be difficult enough to convince Ren to even let him in. Hux swallowed, lifting his hand to request access to Ren’s chambers, when suddenly the doors in front of him snapped open with a curt _swish_. 

Ren stood, unfazed, towering in the doorway, sudden appearance forcing Hux to flinch and take a step back. Silhouetted by the brilliant light of his quarters behind him, its hard to make out the exact details of Ren’s face, but the brusque arch of his eyebrows and faint glimmer of his eyes as they zero in on Hux and drink him in. 

“General Hux,” Ren said flatly, “why did you follow me to my quarters?”

Hux’s numb, dry tongue flip-flopped in his mouth for a moment, before he stuttered out a response. “Why...why did you let me follow you, sir?”

Ren stilled at that. For a moment, Hux thought he might be punished for his assumption, but then Ren took a permissive step back. 

“I didn’t think you would be this bold. But I suppose since you’ve come all this way, I should entertain your tenacity. Foolish as it might be.”

Hux nodded, trying and failing to relax. Tempted as he might feel to edge sideways through the door, as to not leave his back to Ren, he nonetheless attempted to recover his usual confident posture as he strode further into Ren’s quarters. Boots clicked a flimsily assured tattoo against the floor, and though Hux kept his hands at parade rest behind his back, the tips of his fingers digging so tightly into his palm he could feel the nails through the leather. 

Hux glared around the room with barely concealed critique. He hated how pristine Ren’s new quarters looked. The cold white walls, the sleek flooring, it’s all wrong, unnatural and wholly ill-suited to the man inhabiting it. After all, Ren is a man who seeps outwards and infects all those around him, lures them in, makes them a part of him, caught in a sinister, inescapable orbit. He should not live anywhere that looks so free of stain, so impossibly, flawlessly untouched. His surroundings stark and pale and smooth as the flesh of Hux’s throat as it bobbed and tightened beneath his already too-constrictive collar. 

“What is your purpose here?” Ren demanded cooly. Hux turned around to face him. He saw Ren was still filthy, caked from head to boot in the leavings of the battle. Reddish grime streaked across the leather, soaked into pleated cotton. Hair matted, enemy blood dried over one eye. Yet he was so calm, so static compared to the beast Hux witnessed on Mustafar and a hundred other battlefields, hungry for the kill, driven by his mad goals but also his own bloodlust, desire to get lost in the catharsis of personal conquest. Ren stood on the precipice of yet another phase in his life, and only time will tell whether he falls to his death or ascends to new heights. 

Or whether Hux will be beside him, no matter which direction he goes in. That, ultimately, was what Hux wanted answered today.

But he couldn’t exactly _say_ that, yet he needed to be bold if he wanted this to work. So instead, he said: 

“I was thinking you could fuck me, sir,” because asking for physical pleasure had always been easier. 

The request hung in the air, tenuous, despite the conviction with which Hux had presented it. He tries to hold himself stiffly, to anticipate rejection, but even so it seeped out in the tightening of his lips and the slight wobble of his chin. Ren, thankfully, showed similar microreactions, his thick brows pinching together slightly as he studied Hux’s intentions, starting with his expression and body language and creeping deeper, into his mind amidst his emotions. Hux swallowed, allowing him. A man like Pryde, who had too much to hide, would resist Ren’s probing, but not him. Not Hux. 

“...Fuck you, is that it?” Ren questioned. “Very forward of you, general.” 

Indeed, it was. They both usually avoided such coarse language, even in times of duress or past passion. But Hux had something to prove, so the carnally intimate word felt more apt. 

“I...yes. I want you to, Ren.” 

“What brought this about? We haven’t...it’s been…” Ren’s face turned contemplative, maybe even slightly confused.

Hux nodded. “I’m well aware of the timeframe.”

“What induced such a sudden change in heart, general?”

Hux could blame it on any number of things, and really there was no wrong answer. But as Ren could pluck the heart of the truth easily from his mind if he wanted to, Hux realized there was little point in obfuscating it. 

“I...you see...you should have heard what General Pryde called you on Mustafar.” Hux tensed a little as he remembered it himself. _He’s almost beautiful to watch..._

Ren blinked placidly, eyes dark and sharklike. “What did he say?”

“Nothing incriminating,” Hux said glumly, almost wishing it was worst, more traitorous than it was. He felt like it was a bit silly that he’d been so affected by such an off-the-cuff comment when there was so much more about Pryde to find unappealing and mistrustful. 

But Ren pressed on, curiosity in his low voice. 

“I want to know. What did he tell you?”

Hux swallowed and steeled himself, trying to look through Ren instead of at him, but finding it impossible. 

“He called you beautiful, but I disagree. You’re not.”

“No?” Ren tilted his head, starting to cross the room. “Then what am I? Tell me, Hux.” He raised his hand, light glinting off the crinkles in the joints of his glove. “I want to hear it from your lips.”

Hux almost felt like telling him that if he wanted to know that badly, he could just take it from his mind. Ren could take anything from him, wasn’t that right? Down to the very threads of thought spinning through his skull. Nevertheless, and against his own better judgment, he spoke, let out what he’d been holding in all this time. 

“Striking, breathtaking. Dangerous, addictive. Poisonous. Magnetic. Detestable. Transcendent.” Hux’s breath grew faster, more fluttery with each long stride Ren took towards him, words spilling out one after another, discordant in contrast yet perfectly paired nonetheless. “In sum...horrifying and divine all at once. _That’s_ what you are.”

“Quite the list,” Ren mused after a short moment of silence, eyes trained on Hux’s face, specifically his twitching lips. “You’ve thought about me a lot, haven’t you?”

Hux gave a small sigh. “Unfortunately. You’re a man who requires much unraveling. I’ve spent six years struggling to understand you, to understand why I…” He breathed deeply, switching gears. “I don’t believe you can be summed up in one short word. It’s impossible, almost disrespectful.” He snorted derisively at the echo of Pryde’s words in his mind. ”Beautiful...that is far too simple. A shallow, glib reading of who you are, at best. _I_ know you, Ren. I know you in ways he will never understand.”

Once close enough, Ren slid his fingers beneath Hux’s chin. Instinctively, Hux tipped it up, eyes downcast to watch, though he already feels every millimeter of movement against his skin. His mouth ran dry, expecting any moment for Ren’s lips to seal over his. 

“Well. If that’s what you came here for, general,” Ren said and abruptly took a step back, hand leaving Hux’s chin, half turning away from him, “I suppose I could clean myself off and—”

Hux’s hand flew out before he could stop it, closing around Ren’s wrist and yanking him back in close, either tapping into some heretofore unknown strength or taking him by surprise. Ren stumbled slightly, his massive bulk swaying as Hux pulled him into his personal space. Hux clamped Ren’s palm onto his hip, reaching up with his other hand to pull him, by the hair, into a harsh kiss. 

“No. Don’t. Don’t you dare set a foot into the refresher.” Hux growled when their kiss broke apart with a sloppy _pop_ , rending his hand through Ren’s inky curls, smearing the blood and sweat soaked there into the crease of his gloves. “I want to smell, to _feel_ every inch of that battle you fought. Every single one of those deaths is _ours_.”

At that Ren surged forward without further delay, finally unleashing just enough of that brutish energy from earlier to get Hux’s cock swelling to startling new lengths in his pants, even as his back hit the wall with a _thud_. Ren’s hand clawed at his thigh as he hoisted one of Hux’s legs over a hip, rubbing their groins together as their tongues tangled in a skein of wet moans and hungry teeth. Somehow, Ren managed to wrench Hux’s pants off in the chaos, spit-slicked fingers shoving in without preamble and making Hux keen. 

“No, just—just put it in, Ren,” he eked out once he recovered enough breath to do more than pant. He cants his hips forward, Ren’s thick fingers scissoring clumsily inside of him. “Don’t wait, not a moment longer.”

Ren didn’t hesitate with Hux egging him on. With a rough, almost primitive growl, he replaced his fingers with his tremendous cock and, without giving Hux a moment to take air into his lungs, fucked into him. Hux choked, moaned—one rough, powerful thrust from Ren’s hips was enough to send his cock plunging all the way to Hux’s very core. 

Sweat bounced off of Ren’s hair, grime and flaked blood shaking from his clothes and skin as he fucked Hux brutally into the wall. It was a different kind of violence than the one he wreaked upon the hapless cultists, a violence _possessive,_ rather than destructive, but fueled by Ren’s lust for power, for control, ever the same as it always had been. Gorgeous, in how feral and wildly he loved, unleashed himself upon Hux. 

But Ren wasn’t the only one who felt that way, though his aggression certainly helped to kindle whatever simmering feelings Hux had towards him. He dug his nails into Ren’s shoulders, grabbing fistfuls of dirty leather cape for himself as he brought his face nose to nose with Ren’s. For a moment, a detente stretches out between them, transfixed by one another, gazes shaking only with the continued momentum of Ren’s hips. 

“You’re mine,” Hux whispered, voice breaking, “you’re _mine_ , I’m the one who’s put up with you all this time, you owe me, you _owe me_ —” He threw his head back, cutting himself off in a moan as Ren resurged with a rougher thrust, hiking Hux a couple more inches up against the wall with the pure power of his hips. Hux swore and clutched tighter onto Ren, the sole of his other boot leaving the ground as he snagged it around Ren’s waist, slim body now held up entirely by the man’s strength. 

“Needy, selfish little thing,” Ren snarled against Hux’s throat, where his canines have left long lines raked against his flesh, “I’ve missed this version of you, general. I worried he’d died after Batuu.”

“No thanks to you,” Hux rasped, arching his jugular up into Ren’s teeth, entreating him to bite harder, mark him so all could see, “I figured you would sooner kill me than fuck me after that fiasco. Especially since Pryde...”

Abruptly, Ren slowed his thrusts and lifted his head, looking Hux right in the eyes. “Pryde is disposable,” he grunted, “I have no qualms with putting a target on his back. But you…” He leans in, resting his forehead against Hux’s, sharing in his quickened breath. “You’re far too valuable to waste.”

Hux took a moment to properly absorb Ren’s words. Once assured he'd heard them correctly, he cracked into a smile.

“I’m happy you realize that,” Hux stated, before pulling Ren into a long, unquenchable kiss. 

By the time Ren’s hips stuttered to a halt and he emptied himself, grunting and sweat-streaked, into Hux’s ass, the general was already limp and floating with his own pleasure, streaks of spend across the skirt of his hiked-up tunic. Usually, he would complain at the stains, but the rest of him is in a similar state—plastered with perspiration, on top of secondhand grime and saliva courtesy of Ren, so it was hardly worth the fuss. Hux moaned at the feeling of Ren filling him up, legs tightening around the Supreme Leader’s strong hips as Ren buried himself home one last time. 

Hux wavered when Ren finally released him from his grasped and settled him back on his feet, toppling forward into an ample breadth of chest. He scoffed as strong arms enclosed him, but didn’t try to push free. 

“You...you’d best have a place to rest in this damn place, I’m not hobbling through the hallways back to my quarters after all _that_. Really, Supreme Leader, I thought _I_ had a penchant for minimalist design…”

“ _Hush_ , Hux,” Ren soothed, petting the back of his head, and Hux snuffled, miffed. 

Thankfully, Ren’s bed revealed itself as if hearing his complaint, rising out of a hidden panel in the floor. Hux is delighted to find it’s far bigger than the one in his own quarters, easily able to accommodate two, even if they sprawled out in their lazy and fucked-out state. Quickly, they divested themselves of their soiled clothes, cuddling together with their no-less soiled bodies without much of a care in the world.

Hux sighed, satiated, as he rested his head atop Ren’s chest and let him curl an arm around his waist. It was good, organic, their relationship reapproaching what had been normal for them in the past, after months of tension and adjustment and _interference._

Hux could feel it, as he relished in the post-coital bliss. He had no Force-sensitivity to speak of, but he figured Ren just _felt_ things so strongly that it leached out of him, easily detected by even the most stolid minds. In any case, Hux swore he could sense it, as he cuddled his newfound lover, allowing Ren to plant lazy, moist kisses against the top of his head. It was the power of Ren’s dedication to him, impossibly repaired from a state where Hux believed it to be broken for good.

The power of a good fuck, he supposed. Or maybe, something even more. 

Hux smirked, nuzzling against the mole-flecked skin beneath his cheek as he felt Ren murmur something into his hair, before his breath evens out and slows, head tipping back as he fell into a doze. Probably exhausted from both the earlier battle and the desperate, fervent fucking. But Hux knows even a bone-weary Ren would stay alert, eyes fever-bright and body tense down to every last fiber of muscle, if he did not in some way trust the one sharing his bed. There was only one general that Ren would ever allow this close. 

Hux traced a circle lightly against Ren’s skin, relishing in the naked touch, the lack of uniformed distance between them, a privilege beyond leatheris and gaberwool and masks and rank that only he had earned. 

It was ridiculous that anyone out there at all thought they understood this man more than Hux did. No one dared to get as close as he had, risked maulings and throttlings and unceasingly ignoble suffering to see the beauty of him in his rare, tame moments. 

And Pryde—Pryde, of all people, thought he could possibly know Kylo Ren from a single, _measly_ battle. From shallow, skin-deep observations. _Hah_. Hux’s smirk spread into a cruel, smug grin that shows the points of his teeth. Enric Pryde was old, foolish, a relic of the empire—just like Brendol Hux, like Admiral Brooks, like Snoke, like the decrepit, mystical ghost that thought he could use the Order’s almighty Supreme Leader as an errand boy however he saw fit. 

Hux hummed as he kissed over Ren’s strongly beating heart and, gradually, began to slip into pleasant dreams of conquest and revenge and many, many more rough fucks with their bodies still warm from the heat of battle. Closing his eyes, Hux’s grin eased into something softer, satisfied with the state of things. 

Someday soon, everyone who ever thought they knew he and Ren would pay dearly for their arrogance.

**Author's Note:**

> And then they kill off Pryde and Palpatine and rule the galaxy together. Well, at least in _my_ version of the script...
> 
> Hit me up on [Tumblr](http://thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heir_of_breath7/).


End file.
